Club Class Dinining Question

[HodgeNNicole]

We are leaving in 85 days not that we are counting.... Sailing on the Caribbean Princess, we have a club class mini-suite cabin booked.

 

Can someone explain the club class dining??

Is it just a smaller partition of one of the dining rooms?

Do they use the same menu's as the main dining room?

We enjoy Anytime dining, will having club class dining make getting seated easier for us?

Thanks for all the help in advance.

[Aus Traveller]

Club Class dining is in a separate section of the MDRs. The CC tables have the same menu as the rest of the dining room, but with the addition of an item or two. You have Anytime dining, but with a difference - you will usually be seated as soon as you arrive. If you like to share a table with others, that doesn't happen as often on CC as in the main part of the dining room.

[PoohUnderstands]

I have only waited a couple times to be seated in CC dining and those times, we were looked after hand and foot and given a place to sit while waiting and they rushed to get us seated.  But what I like most about CC dining(and don't forget you also have CC dining for breakfast and lunch when available), is that you go when you want and "usually" can sit at the same table or close and have the same wait staff each night(in fact our wonderful wait staff was always looking out for our arrival!).  This is also true for breakfast and lunch.  Most of the tables are for two, but I have seen over and over, 2 & 3 tables for two having the same 4-6 people each night and they talked with each other like they were a table of 4 or 6.  So you can decide what you would like to do as far as conversing with others.  I only do CC minis or Window Suites when I book a cruise anymore.

 

Pooh

[riffatsea]

In our experience Club Class allows you to walk into the club Class area when you please and sit down at the table of your choice. You can certainly have the same wait staff each night. There is usually one extra dish offered not on the regular menu.

Sometimes it is an app.Sometimes a main dish or dessert.

We think of Club Class as Anytime dining +.

[AF-1]

I sailed CB last year and had club class.  Club class was a section to the left of Coral dining room on deck 6.  The first time you go they will check your medallion to see if you have club class.  After that the same wait staff will be there to meet you everytime.  We always had a table for two.  Never had to wait on both cruises.  Loved it.

[Bollycats]

Regarding breakfast, on the Royal in December there was no separate entrance for Club Class. There was a long line waiting to be seated. I parked my mother in the line and went up to the podium and nicely asked if there was a separate entrance/line for Club Class. (or did we have to wait in the regular line-never had Club Class before so I didn't know)  He about fell over himself to get us seated right away. I called my mother forward and off we went. So don't wait if there's a long line-go up to the podium and ask. 

[MCC retired]

13 hours ago, HodgeNNicole said:

We are leaving in 85 days not that we are counting.... Sailing on the Caribbean Princess, we have a club class mini-suite cabin booked.

 

Can someone explain the club class dining??

Is it just a smaller partition of one of the dining rooms? Yes

Do they use the same menu's as the main dining room? Yes

We enjoy Anytime dining, will having club class dining make getting seated easier for us? Yes

Thanks for all the help in advance.

 

[turquoisesea]

We have had Club Class dining twice on the Crown, once on the CB and just last August on the Ruby.  We now try to always book a CC Mimi suite or suite so that we can have this dining option.  We have always been able to have the same servers for all meals. On all 3 of those ships there is a separate entrance with a big wall sign marking this entrance. On the Ruby the hostess knew our names after our first meal and greeted  us  by name each day. Another interesting point.... I had read here on the boards a while ago that the CC wait staff go to the head of the line in the kitchen. So I asked our waiter and he said yes that is true. He said he can get his  choice of dishes and it is always hot. We loved  our Ruby waiters -Sheldon and Alex. They made that cruise very enjoyable! We find it is well worth the extra price. 

[shepp]

Just disembarked from the Grand. There was a tableside grill in the CC area. There were generally two dinner items not on the menu, a main dish and a pasta, and getting a custom omelette for breakfast was quick and easy. Sometimes there was a special hot dinner dessert. Never had a wait for a table and they often seated just the two of us at a four-top for breakfast. Had a great waiter. Service was attentive to the point of annoying; I was asked twice within a minute how my oatmeal was. It was oatmeal.

 

Since we have priority boarding from being elite and usually do early traditional at a table for two, the main benefit was flexibility in dining time. And very personalized service. Oh, and two splits of wine.  We actually got a free upgrade from a standard mini. Not sure, even with the improved cabin location, whether CC would have seemed worth the money, but it sure was nice.

[stevenr597]

I believe that the Caribbean Princess has three dining rooms, and one of them is reserved for both Club Class and Suite Passengers.  We will be sailing in May and looking forward to being trying out Club Class on Caribbean Princess.  We have had it on Regal Princess and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

[reedprincess]

33 minutes ago, stevenr597 said:

I believe that the Caribbean Princess has three dining rooms, and one of them is reserved for both Club Class and Suite Passengers.  We will be sailing in May and looking forward to being trying out Club Class on Caribbean Princess.  We have had it on Regal Princess and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

All Grand class and Royal class ships have three dining rooms.

One is always traditional, one is traditional early followed by Anytime from 7 or so, and the third is always anytime. This is the one that has Club Class dining in one section - it's not the whole dining room, nor even the majority of the dining room. It's not a dedicated CC dining room on any ship, except Sapphire (which has 5 dining rooms).  It's just a section of the Anytime dining room.

[HodgeNNicole]

Wow I am glad I spring for the upgrade.  I really just wanted a better stateroom location but sounds like it is worth the extra. Our 5 year old can eat his weight in fruit and berries from what it sounds like the waiters will already have bowls of berries waiting for him!! LOL

Stevenr597 when are you cruising? We are on the May 9th cruise......

[muffydawg]

Is a category MB mini-suite on the Sky Princess considered a Club Class mini-suite?

 

[snoozecrooze]

10 minutes ago, muffydawg said:

Is a category MB mini-suite on the Sky Princess considered a Club Class mini-suite?

 

I may be wrong, but I believe only M1 cabins are Club Class. Deck plans on the website should explain. 

[jondfk]

All Club Class Mini's are category M1 or M6 so far as I know.

 

I agree with most everything folks have written about Club Class service though I would point out that being seated whenever you arrive is an aspiration, not a promise.  We've been asked to "come back a bit later" on a number of occasions, the worst being a 45 minute wait on Grand last spring.  They do try, but the space is small and if a lot of folks arrive in a narrow time window, well the obvious consequence is some will have to wait.  Our experience on Royal was that we never once had to wait, much more space allotted to CC.  On Grand class ships we've had a wait at least once on every cruise we've taken.

 

On yes, our experience on Royal was similar to that described above.  The CC entrance was shared with non-CC diners who had booked fixed tables in the Anytime Dining room (yes I said fixed tables in Anytime Dining - bizarre).  This created chaos at the check in stand which served both CC and non-CC diners.  We learned after a couple of very, very long waits, that we were expected to enter through the exit doors and catch the eye of the CC hostess who would seat us immediately.  This is a very poorly run system and generated our only significant negative feedback about Royal.

 

I've written before about the additional menu item(s) prepared in the dining room.  These can be really special or not so special at all.  They are "prepared" (really just combined) by the CC headwaiter some of whom love this ability to show off their "cooking" skills.  Others of them would prefer to mingle with their guests and see the cooking duty as an unwelcome burden.  It will be clear very quickly which camp yours fall into - my advice is follow your instinct.  If the headwaiter clearly loves this job - take advantage and enjoy.  On the other hand. . .

 

Club class dining is a nice addition by Princess and we do purchase such cabins when the premium over a standard mini is reasonable it's worth $20 or $30 per day (per cabin) to us, if the premium is much more than this we stick with traditional dining. To be honest our experience with TD is very favorable, you have the same service team every day, they very quickly adapt to your preferences. 

[franktown]

3 hours ago, muffydawg said:

Is a category MB mini-suite on the Sky Princess considered a Club Class mini-suite?

 

No.  If you go to Princess website and look at the deck plans for the ship it shows what rooms are Club Class.

Edited February 17, 2020 by franktown
add

[stevenr597]

On 2/13/2020 at 10:33 PM, HodgeNNicole said:

Wow I am glad I spring for the upgrade.  I really just wanted a better stateroom location but sounds like it is worth the extra. Our 5 year old can eat his weight in fruit and berries from what it sounds like the waiters will already have bowls of berries waiting for him!! LOL

Stevenr597 when are you cruising? We are on the May 9th cruise......

We will be cruising one week before you on May 2nd.  Looking forward to the Caribbean Princess.  Our last two cruises on Princess have been on the Royal Class.  We haven't cruised on the Grand Class for quite some time.

 

[HodgeNNicole]

Stevdenr597 It would be great if you could leave a nice deposit in the Casino for us to pick up after you disembark!! Thanks!!

Perhaps we will run into you on the dock as you are leaving... 

It should be easy to find us... We will be the family smiling from ear to ear doing the "I am not working for a week dance!!" LOL

[MissP22]

On 2/13/2020 at 2:03 PM, shepp said:

Just disembarked from the Grand. 

 

 

A little off topic but do you know if they accepted the old coffee cards on your Grand cruise?

I have heard from others that they did. 

[stevenr597]

On 2/13/2020 at 9:59 PM, reedprincess said:

All Grand class and Royal class ships have three dining rooms.

One is always traditional, one is traditional early followed by Anytime from 7 or so, and the third is always anytime. This is the one that has Club Class dining in one section - it's not the whole dining room, nor even the majority of the dining room. It's not a dedicated CC dining room on any ship, except Sapphire (which has 5 dining rooms).  It's just a section of the Anytime dining room.

I saw the following quote about the Palm Dining Room on the Caribbean Princess being reserved for Club Class and Suite Passengers:
"Palm Dining Room (Deck 6, aft): The Palm Dining Room is an exclusive main dining room reserved only for passengers staying in suites and Club-designated mini-suites. It uses the same menus found in the Island and Coral dining rooms."

Edited February 18, 2020 by stevenr597
add some additonal information

[Papa Yoda]

39 minutes ago, stevenr597 said:

I saw the following quote about the Palm Dining Room on the Caribbean Princess being reserved for Club Class and Suite Passengers:
"Palm Dining Room (Deck 6, aft): The Palm Dining Room is an exclusive main dining room reserved only for passengers staying in suites and Club-designated mini-suites. It uses the same menus found in the Island and Coral dining rooms."

 

I think that is in error though I've not been to Club Class on CB, the rest of the paragraph from the CruiseCritic review says that seating times are "set":

 

Palm Dining Room (Deck 6, aft): The Palm Dining Room is an exclusive main dining room reserved only for passengers staying in suites and Club-designated mini-suites. It uses the same menus found in the Island and Coral dining rooms. Seating in Palm is set seating only, with early dinner at 5:45 p.m. and late dinner at 8 p.m.

https://www.cruisecritic.com/reviews/review.cfm?ShipID=303&pgtype=dining

 

Club Class is "supposed" to be Anytime (plus + as noted above).  We've been Club Class on 4 Grand class and the Royal and the Anytime+ was the case.  On the Grand class it's been deck six midship dining room starboard, they put a Club Class sign in the small hallway abaft the lifts.  See red arrow

 

[PoohUnderstands]

After our first night or morning or lunchtime in CC dining, we just always went to the CC section of the dining room for breakfast and lunch.  We just bypass the line, if any, as CC is separate section.  In fact they know us after the first day and we just wander back to our special spot on our own and greet our wait staff who then bring me my V-8 juice and extra special hot decaf coffee!

Love CC dining.

 

Pooh

[Ereggae]

On 2/13/2020 at 9:22 PM, stevenr597 said:

I believe that the Caribbean Princess has three dining rooms, and one of them is reserved for both Club Class and Suite Passengers.  We will be sailing in May and looking forward to being trying out Club Class on Caribbean Princess.  We have had it on Regal Princess and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Was there a separate Club Class entrance on the Regal Princess?

[ghstudio]

39 minutes ago, Ereggae said:

Was there a separate Club Class entrance on the Regal Princess?

yes...curious minds would like to know,.  We will be on the Regal for 27 days next month in club class.

[jondfk]

30 minutes ago, Ereggae said:

Was there a separate Club Class entrance on the Regal Princess?

 

I haven't sailed on Regal, but recently sailed on her nearly identical sister Royal.  Club Class dining was on the port side of deck 6.  By design this entrance was supposed to be Club Class only, HOWEVER, someone in their infinite wisdom decided that people with Anytime dining who had booked a fixed dining time each night (who knew that was possible?) should enter not through the main starboard side entrance but rather through Club Class.  The Club Class hosts were pressed into service seating fixed seating Anytime guests which created a massive log jam to be seated.  It took us a couple of nights (I"m a slow learner) to realize that what we were supposed to do was:  a) Enter through the closed 'exit' doors.  b) Loiter parallel to the Club Class desk, (enduring the scorn of all of the folks we jumped in front of). c)  Doing so seemed to signal the CC host that we knew we weren't supposed to wait in the giant line, the next opportunity they had they pulled us ahead and seated us immediately.  

 

On other ships we've never seen Club Class hosts pressed into service seating dozens of other pax, so perhaps this is a quirk unique to Royal - here's hoping.